Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
We had a late arrival in Guayaquil two nights ago and were ferried directly to our hotel, which was quite spiffy. Here’s my room: After a restive night, I had a substantial Ecuadorian buffet breakfast (lovely tamales and fried plantains) and we were bussed to the Guayaquil airport for our 1 hour, 40-minute flight to … Continue reading I have landed (in Ecuador)
This morning we spent a lot of time dropping food off at an Antarctic base that didn’t get its regular shipment of food because the supply ship, rife with Covid, had to head back to South America. We were told they were running short of protein, and so the ship’s food administrator put together a … Continue reading Antarctica, Day 9: Whalers Bay
Let’s end the work week with some animal behavior: in this case, octopus sex. I don’t even know how a male octopus determines that another individual is female! The narration is pretty twee, but if the males really compete to see who has the bigger suckers, that would be fascinating. And the arm that delivers … Continue reading Octopus sex
OMG they made a prosthetic leg for a male mallard and it works! Is there anything more satisfying than seeing a lame duck walk again? It takes Waddles a bit to learn how to walk, but we’re reassured that he’ll get better and better with time. Nerdist tells us a bit more of the story, … Continue reading Waddles the Duck gets a prosthetic leg
Please send in your wildlife photos! Yes, we have no wildlife today but we have geysers—photographed by Matt Young. Matt’s notes are indented, and you can enlarge the geyer pix by clicking on them. I had the good fortune to spend several days in Iceland in the summer of 2010 with my wife and a … Continue reading Readers’ wildlife photos
It’s been a frustrating day: I spent an hour writing a critique of a Scientific American op-ed on “sex isn’t bimodal” only to discover the piece was several years old (and I probably wrote about it before). Into the trash can it went. The good news, though, is that, through meticulous photographs of duck bills … Continue reading Gutsy impala evades wild dogs, crocodiles, and angry hippos
We had a 2½-hour walk on North Seymour Island this morning. The weather was lovely: not too hot, overcast (best for pictures), and with a cooling bit of wind. And the animals were all out and on display. First the ship, National Geographic’s Endeavour II, photographed from shore. It’s not large (26 staterooms), making for … Continue reading The Galápagos: North Seymour Island
Here from Science Advances via National Geographic, is the painting of a wild pig from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. AT 45,000 years old, it’s world’s oldest cave art, and in fact the oldest known representational art of any sort. Here’s the paper reporting it (click on screenshot), and a free pdf is here: The … Continue reading World’s oldest representational art: an Indonesian warty pig from 45,000 years ago
Where we are. (Follow the journey of the Roald Amundsen at this link, clicking on “current position” at lower left. Our ship is circled in red.) We overnighted in the peaceful waters of Deception Island, a donut-shaped volcanic caldera in the South Shetland Islands. It exploded and caved in about 10,000 years ago, but is … Continue reading Sunday: Hili dialogue
Why would you want to train a cat? Well, the article below from SCIENCEalert (click title to read) gives you several reasons why specific training is needed: In a rehoming shelter, for example, training can be a useful tool to increase a cat’s exploratory behaviors, positive reactions to people, and maybe even their chances of being adopted. … Continue reading Caturday felid trifecta: How to train a cat; inside the mind of a cat; Pallas’ cats; and lagniappe
